How can other countries ban smoking at public sites?
Our sanctions are not strong enough. In Hong Kong, the fine for smoking at public sites is HK$5,000, equivalent to 11 million dong. They have smoking supervision teams at public sites. In Vietnam, this job is assigned to police officers or guards but they don’t do it because the fine is very small, 50,000-100,000. If we impose higher fines and pay them commissions, the ban will be effective. Moreover, many people are not familiar with living under and following the law. Vietnam forced cigarette producers to print warnings on cigarette packs. How will this help change people’s awareness? Most people have only vague understanding about the harms of cigarettes to health and they lack knowledge about diseases caused by cigarettes. The warning accounts for around 30 percent of the area of a cigarette pack, and it is not strong enough: “Smoking can cause cancer”. The warning would be better if it was expressed in an image. It has been suggested that the warning contain an image but it has no
